Welcome to Episode 135 of the Think UDL podcast: Nothing Without Us with Amy Lomellini. Dr. Amy Lomellini is the Product Accessibility Lead at Anthology. She leverages her personal and professional experiences to help bring clarity, consistency, and confidence to the accessibility of Anthology’s array of educational technology products and solutions. She has experience as an instructional designer and an associate director of online learning. She teaches related courses and chairs several accessibility committees, including Anthology’s Accessibility Workstream. She holds a doctorate in educational technology and her research and publications focus on accessible and inclusive online course design strategies. In today’s episode, Amy and I talk about her experience as an online learner, educator and as an advocate for accessible and inclusive education. We discuss how disability culture has impacted and might shape online education and visions for the future of online education.
A side note, I was able to record this interview in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September of 2024 which devastated Western North Carolina where I live. I did not have power, water or internet access at my home podcast studio, but was able to go somewhere that did. If the audio quality is not up to the same standard as previous episodes, it is because I was not using my usual podcasting equipment. However, having this conversation was an immediate balm to my soul and helped mend a bit of a broken heart over the recent destruction all around me. I hope you find it as hopeful and mending as I did.
Resources
Find Amy Lomellini on LinkedIn
Here is the book chapter: The imperfection of accessibility in instructional design: An ethical dilemma in the book Applied Ethics for Instructional Design and Technology edited by Tonia Dousay and Stephanie Moore.
Transcript
Lillian Nave 0:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind.
I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters.
Welcome to Episode 135 of the think UDL podcast, nothing without us with Amy Lomellini. Dr Amy Lomellini is the product accessibility lead at anthology. She leverages her personal and professional experiences to help bring clarity, consistency and confidence to the accessibility of anthologies, array of educational technology products. She has experience as an instructional designer and an associate director of online learning. She teaches related courses and chairs several accessibility committees, including anthologies, accessibility workstream. She holds a doctorate in educational technology, and her research and publications focus on accessible and inclusive online course design strategies. In today’s episode, Amy and I talk about her experience as an online learner educator and as an advocate for accessible and inclusive education, we discuss how disability culture has impacted and might shape online education and visions for the future of online education. As a side note, I was able to record this interview in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September of 2024which devastated western North Carolina where I live, I did not have power, water or internet access at my home podcast studio, but was able to go somewhere that did. If the audio quality is not up to the same standard as previous episodes, it’s because I was not using my usual podcasting equipment. However, having this conversation was an immediate balm to my soul and helped mend a bit of a broken heart over the recent destruction all around me. I hope you find it as hopeful and mending as I did, and as always. Thank you for listening to this conversation on the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor, Texthelp, a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood. It has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12 right through to higher education, for the last three decades, discover their impact at text, dot help forward, slash, learn more. That’s L, E, A, R, N, M, O, R, E.
So thank you, Amy Lomellini for joining me today on the think UDL Podcast. I’m glad to have you.
Amy Lomellini 3:18
I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for doing this podcast in general, and then for inviting me on awesome.
Lillian Nave 3:24
I’m excited to get into what you do and our conversation. But you know, my first question I ask all my guests is what makes you a different kind of learner.
Amy Lomellini 3:36
I really love this question, and when I saw this question, I was reflecting on on it and on my thoughts about it, and I’ve always been somewhat of a perfectionist. So I think in many ways, even from a young age, it was about proving a point to myself and others that I could keep up despite being a medically complex child and adult. So I missed a lot of my high school years because I was in and out of the hospital with different medical issues. I struggled when I went to college at first as well, but I was determined to not let it define me, I guess.
And once I found online learning, I was better able to manage my variable disabilities and not only survive but thrive in education and being able to just work on my own time with my own supports. So sometimes I use braces for my hands. Other times I need to put my feet up. Sometimes I need to take a rest. I get medical infusions that are four hours two days, and a nurse comes to my house. I’ve done that during class. And you know, I have to do it when I have to do it, but if I can do my classwork on my own time, it just works so much better for me. It makes all the difference. Once I kind of figured out how to embrace that, and once online learning came into the picture, I was so much more able to really just thrive. And do well and have fun, which I think was the important part. Up until then, it was a battle. So getting to a location at a certain time, you know, even the commute to the location, having to be feeling well in that moment, was just difficult for me and online learning, I didn’t have to do that. I didn’t have to worry about getting to the location and whether or not I could use my wheelchair at the location. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not, you know, where I was in my medical cycle of, you know, good days or bad days. And, you know, it just, it made all the difference for me.
Lillian Nave 5:35
Yeah, that is the testament to flexibility being so important, isn’t it?
Wow. I must say that so many of the things that you’ve mentioned that make online learning so good for so many are the things that are so non traditional about what especially college, because my podcast is about college and beyond. You know, what we’ve always thought, and I’m using air quotes in a podcast that nobody can see, you know, was the right way, or the traditional way that we had to do things, and thank goodness that we have other ways, and flexibility has entered the picture.
Amy Lomellini 6:17
Absolutely, I think it’s been a revelation for me, just as online learning has come as far as it has, and I understand for some people, it may be very challenging, but to have that option, for me, it has been just a game changer, absolutely, yeah, and we need flexibility, and I think covid and the pandemic helped us to see so much, how, how much that was needed. And that’s, you know, one of the dividends. I like to call it the covid dividend. It was not great at all. But for sure, one thing we can take from it is that we learned how good things can come from that and and how people need it, yeah. And I think for people like me, it has made it has made education more possible.
I started my master’s degree after I was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease, and I was in ICU, and then acute rehab, and I never told anybody. So I was in acute rehab at the time. I started my master’s program online, and yeah, I just never told my faculty member. I never told disability services. At the time, I didn’t know what was happening, so I didn’t I actually told my job I’d be back next week. That didn’t happen.
So how was I supposed to have a conversation with a faculty member I’d never met who you know was across the country, so I was in New York, and this was Boise State, but my courses were designed with UDL in mind. They were designed so flexibly, met with so much flexibility and just the way that the course itself was structured, I was able to be okay and still complete the course while learning to walk again, I couldn’t really use my hands. I couldn’t keep my head up. I had an airplane pillow around my neck
to stabilize my neck at the time, and I really had to learn everything all new. But I couldn’t have possibly had a conversation with a faculty member about my needs or any sort of accommodation at that point, because I didn’t even know. I didn’t know what was happening. Luckily, I didn’t really have to, because of the way that they had intentionally designed the course and the program in general.
Lillian Nave 8:20
Yeah, that’s a fantastic testament to the use of Universal Design for Learning in courses, again, because you don’t have to ask, like that whole idea about wanting to know, or needing to know, the kind of policing of, well, wait, is your reason good enough? Or that reason is good, but that other reason not so good, you know that, like, I don’t want to do that. I’m here to teach. You know, I’m not there to do, try to determine or decipher what, yeah, what accommodations are needed, or what, you know, what experience is valid.
Amy Lomellini 8:58
And more than that, I think there’s an assumption that doctors will know what accommodation you need, and they’ll just write it for you. Yeah, doctors are not faculty members. They are not in education. They don’t know what is even available as an option. And I found that as well, is that I didn’t know what was available or what to ask for, and my doctor was no help, and I didn’t even know what to do or who to turn to. But again, luckily, I didn’t have to make that known, and that was like a weight off my shoulders, not having to worry about that piece and to just focus on my studies. It also gave me a distraction from everything I was going through, and I was able to just focus on my studies and get my work done when I felt I could, yeah.
Lillian Nave 9:42
Oh, good. All right, so I feel like we are already answering my second question, but, but, but I’m going to say it anyway, but that is Tell me about your background, and how has it shaped what you are doing now?
Amy Lomellini 9:58
Yeah. So as I was talking. I’ve been medically complex since I was young, but I never really saw it as a disability until I understood the disability community and the culture that belongs with that in adulthood. But one of my first jobs way back when was working with the deaf community, and I volunteered with deaf children in New York City, the whole community was just so incredibly welcoming. I really learned about what it means to embrace who you are through these kids. I mean, they were fantastic just being kids. And this program in New York City allowed deaf kids that go to mainstream schools to come together and just be deaf and be kids all at the same time and embrace who they are. So that was really like a profound learning experience for me. And I wanted to be an interpreter, but unfortunately, my body gave out. Interpreting is a very physical job, and my body just couldn’t handle it, so I had to pivot, and on a whim, I moved to Peru, as one does, right? Exactly I would too. I mean, right? And I was teaching English in Peru, but I was able to finish my degree online, so I was going to an American school while living abroad in Peru, I was living in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, getting a world class education, right? And that idea just changed everything for me. So when I came back to the States, I was working in online learning, but I never forgot, you know, working with the deaf community and then my own disabilities, so I incorporated accessibility into everything that I did. I eventually found instructional design, and I started my master’s online at Boise State, and that’s when I was diagnosed with the neuromuscular disease. You know, again, I was one of the 60 to 80% of students who don’t disclose. There were so many reasons for me and for others why, you know, that’s just not something that we want to do or should be should have to do,
you know. So eventually, I got my disease under control. I got my treatments going, everything kind of working out. And I did my doctorate also at Boise State, and I had a focus on inclusive and accessible online learning. So that’s been the area of my research. And it was just like all these pieces of a puzzle fit together. So I found my niche, I found like my passion in instructional design. So I was working as an instructional designer and Associate Director of Online Learning for several years, and then I was a power user of what was then Blackboard ally, now anthology ally, and as part of that user group, I saw a job posting for my current job, which is the product accessibility lead at anthology, and I jumped on the opportunity to have this like wider impact. So I get to work on groundbreaking technology that supports students and disabled students like me, which is the important piece for you know, and I get to support people in achieving their dreams. So part of my role is making sure that the voices and perspectives like mine are considered in how we design and build technology that these faculty and students use every day, excellent, nothing for nothing about us or for us without us, right? Nothing about us, without us, yeah. And now it’s just nothing about nothing, nothing without us, yeah, so not even if it has to be about disability, but just nothing, period, without us. Like disabled, voices need to be heard. We need to be part of the conversation, especially when it comes to the rapid advances in tech. You know, we need to be a part of that conversation and make sure that it’s designed from the beginning with our perspectives in mind. And we are problem solvers. We’re innovators. We by nature, it’s just we’ve had to adapt our whole life, and infusing that perspective into technology just makes everything better. It does. It absolutely does. Yes, I learned so much when I’m in that arena, right? That’s when all of my colleagues are able to be flexible, and really, they teach me so much more too, coming from, you know, teaching in a very traditional way for, probably, I don’t know, 1518, years before learning about UDL and realizing how many kind of false truths I don’t know things that we thought were supposed to be that way were just so discriminatory and and unneeded. Just yeah,
the absolutely we’re falling from my eyes. Yeah, right. I think we learn about that by talking as a community and talking as you know, it shouldn’t be on disabled students to to share that. But I think when, like for example, in my role, I’m empowered to do that, and I know that it’s not about me and my experiences, I try my best to connect with the community as much as possible, and I want to hear the diverse voices that are out there. I want to hear from everybody I possibly can. Tell me your experience. Tell me what we’re doing. Let’s talk this out, and let’s do this together. And I think that’s the important part. Yes, absolutely. Communication is so key and feedback, yes, hearing from our students. Yes, absolutely.
Lillian Nave 15:00
Okay, so as an online educator and an advocate for accessible and inclusive education, so how do you see this working? What strategies would you say are most important in creating an inclusive learning experience, knowing that we need feedback and that everything is different. But what can you tell us?
Amy Lomellini 15:23
I think being intentional and being reflective is really important. So I recently wrote a book chapter on ethics, about of accessibility and instructional design, and the message there was really the reflection piece. We need to be intentional. We need to be proactive. In an ideal world. I’d like to move past the point of requiring students with disabilities to disclose their disabilities, as we’ve talked about, right? There’s just so many reasons why that’s just not a great route. So as educators, I think it’s important to recognize that students with disabilities are in your course, period full stop. It doesn’t matter what you teach, it doesn’t matter what subject, what level, what grade, you know, none of that matters. They’re there. And if we can start with that assumption, and start with that perspective, we can recognize some bias, we can reflect on on where we’re at. And then I would say, you know, listening to your students, getting that feedback, encouraging them to be a part of it, right? Make this journey together and listen to what they’re saying. I’d also say that you know, seeking support from your teammates or your you know colleagues, whether it’s instructional designers, librarians, disability support staff, other faculty members, accessibility is everyone’s responsibility. Educators are just on the front lines, but everyone there’s a support system there. Find that support system, tap into your champions and work together on the different approaches and strategies. And the other thing I like to say is take it slow. It’s okay. So I think there’s this idea that we have to achieve full accessibility tomorrow, and it’s intimidating, and it’s daunting, and then people don’t do anything because it’s this unachievable goal.
I lean into. There’s a book by Tobin and Behling called reach everyone, teach everyone, UDL in higher education, and they have a plus one approach, but I think it’s really important sometimes that plus one gets conflated with just add another thing. And that is by no means not to speak for them, but I’m very sure that’s not what they mean. So they have this strategy of finding a pinch point, so find a place in your course that’s not necessarily working as well. Maybe students are struggling. Maybe you’re not sure. You know you’re not getting the results that you thought something’s happening. And use that one place as your starting point. You have to start somewhere. Then if you do the plus one where you add something, it doesn’t have to be just adding anything. Look at what you have. Maybe it’s removing something. Maybe it’s shifting something, finding something that is a targeted, measurable change that will support your learners. So in my opinion, design is all about options. It’s possibilities, it’s feedback, it’s iteration, it’s not about perfection. And I think that really translates to UDL and to accessibility as well. Yeah, and I love that you said it might be taking away something you know. It might be removing something you know is your plus one is finding out, oh, I just, you know, this assignment, or, you know, doesn’t make sense at the moment. Or I can change that to be something different, or, you know, or add some options to it. So, and and you said in that answer just now about, you know, we can’t have accessibility tomorrow, necessarily, and that, you know, to worry about trying to be absolutely accessible to everybody. That’s that is a really difficult, if not impossible, because of this, like accessibility, friction. You know, what may be accessible, more accessible to somebody may not be for someone else, right? Absolutely, I think that’s the challenge, and that’s the idea of of UDL as well. Is to build supports, build resources, build connections, and you know, you’re not going to eliminate accommodations, and that, you know, there’s no we don’t need to. We are not trying to. And I think that’s something that often gets mixed up a little bit with UDL, is that it’s going to be perfect for everybody, and it’s not. But that’s to me that goes back to instructional design in general, and it’s about options. It’s about possibilities and thinking through iterations, you may also have different cohorts. This semester’s class may be a little bit different than the next semester’s class, and getting the data and getting the feedback from the students can help guide you know how you design the course, where you take it, and what that looks like, yeah, one of the things that I’ve.
Lillian Nave 19:59
This too, is that with the UDL lens that I put on when I’m trying to design, it makes me look really carefully at what is the actual goal, right? What is it that I need students to either demonstrate or show that they know, you know, what is it that? What is the goal? Rather than, here are the assignments, you know?
Yeah, like you figure out, okay, well, where, how? How do we get to the goal? What are the things? It’s the whole backwards design idea. But, yeah, how do we get to that goal? And what are the flexible ways to get there. But I must say, as I have practiced UDL in the last, you know, 678, years,
Amy Lomellini 20:47
I have been able to have, like a laser focus more on what it is that I really need to cover, what I really need to do, what really the learning is, is it an attitude? Is it a skill? Is it some knowledge, you know? And separating that out that I never had before, it was just sort of, here’s the things I need to cover, and here are the pretty much tests and papers that get you there. And it’s been a real process of refining how I teach in in looking through a UDL lens. I think a couple of things you just mentioned are right on point. What you’ve described is a process of reflection and intentionally reflecting on UDL and on your strategies thinking through different perspectives that may be different than your own. So I think we when we design anything, whether it’s technology or courses, we look through our own lenses, right? So it’s our own experiences can drive the way that we design things. But when you take that moment to think about, in this case, you know, disabled students or marginalized populations of any type, right? And you intentionally think about that, you can understand and identify some of the biases that may be in the class. The other thing that Yuma just mentioned was practiced UDL. Yeah, I think that’s important too, and that is very similar for accessibility. You practice, you do it. You are actively practicing UDL. But it’s not something that’s ever done. It’s not finished, and it’s a constant iteration of your course or of the technology, and that’s that’s a good goal. And I think sometimes it’s looked at as like a scary thing to be constantly iterating and a time consuming one for sure. Yeah, to me, that’s the fun part. Yeah, yeah. And it is. It’s a sense that it’s growing, or that I’m growing too. I’m improving, that constant improvement of things that I hadn’t thought about. I mean, every semester I didn’t, hadn’t thought about that one thing and wow, okay, so I overlooked that, or I hadn’t thought about how this might happen. Or there are new variables, you know there are, yeah, living in that is okay, and I think it’s a hard place to live in the fact that I overlooked something, or I didn’t think about something, and that can also often bring guilt of like, Oh, I didn’t think about this before, and I should have, but it, I try to help people not live in the guilt, but Live in the action. So okay, you know that now. So now what can we do? What can we do differently? What can we shift? What can we think about? So oftentimes when you talk about UDL, you talk about accessibility, it’s that reaction of, oh, I didn’t even think about that. I you know, and then they start to feel really bad, and then it’s like, what else didn’t I think about? In the sense of panic consumes people, right? So trying to bring that back down. And that’s why I do like token unveilings, you know, focused approach. Really find that pinch point. Find something that’s measurable and a small change. Start there, once you can see that that change has been successful or not, maybe it wasn’t, and that’s okay, too. That’s what design is about. That’s what you know learning is about. It’s it’s practicing. It’s not, you know, ever going to be done, and that’s okay. So finding that pinch point, finding that measurable, demonstratable intervention, can make the difference where you feel the confidence, and especially if you’re supporting faculty like an instructional design role, it can really bring the faculty that confidence of, hey, that actually worked. Let me try the next thing, right, and getting that buy in to be the champion.
Lillian Nave 24:28
And I must say too that the failures are the best teachers. So I welcome the failures I used to not, and that was especially as a young teacher. And I started teaching like a class of 100 when I was 24 which, I don’t know how all that happened, but that’s where it was. And I was just so afraid, so afraid of, you know, I had students who were older than I was. I was just starting out. I had been a TA before, but then I had a whole class of art, you know, in art history, and, oh my goodness, is just so. So, so nerve wracking. But, you know, 25 years later, I can, I can see those have a lot more confidence, and see those failures as the best learning opportunities. So I know it depends on where each person is in their career, and, of course, their positionality, you know, and they’re, you know, Are you like me, never had a tenure track position, or are you on the tenure track? I mean, I don’t know which one is actually worse, as far as being afraid that you’re doing something wrong,
Amy Lomellini 25:33
but it’s interesting. It very much parallels the student experience.
Lillian Nave 25:37
Yeah,
Amy Lomellini 25:38
So students are also in their own journey of learning. They’re in their own journey of figuring it out, some maybe with more experience, some with less experience. And if you think about just one analogy that came to my mind, is like when we give students an assignment, say it’s an essay of some sort. What’s more beneficial an essay where you give it to them one time, it’s 100% done, and you just move on to the next thing, or if there’s some iteration involved in it. Can you write an outline? Right? Can you scaffold it? Write an outline, write a draft, give feedback on each of those versions. You know, not always possible, but in an ideal world, that building and that tweaking and revision, that is what the real world is, too. Reports, things I do for work, I tweak and I revise. It’s, you know, I keep working on it. And that’s just the nature of not exactly failing per se. You can, you know, but like iterating, I like to call it right, so learning from it and continuing to grow,
Lillian Nave 26:32
yeah, yeah. And that, that time part, you just made me think of another whole part is, like in grading as well. And I know there’s a great conversations now about the usefulness of grades and and how grades are used or created, and different alternative grading systems and and competency based grading, ungrading, those sorts of things. But the the thing that I had sort of an epiphany about, is about, when does it matter to me, when the students learn something? And it had always been, and the only way I had thought about it was that they had to demonstrate it on, you know, the test, or the quiz, or whatever they had one shot is, in essence, what it was. And then when Iunderstood how much learning can happen if the students brought in their paper, their whatever their work, and then we did a workshop throughout the class that day, and by the end of that 50 minutes, or 75 minutes, they had actually learned the things they had did improperly or could have improved, and they fix it by the end of that 50 minutes, I’m like, that is so much more learning and so much better that it wasn’t just handed in at the beginning of the class, I’m going to grade what you have here, but here’s what by the end of the class, they’ve had feedback from peers. They’ve had feedback from me. We’ve been able to talk through it. And I said, Okay, if you write down the things that you’ve learned, like, if you missed something, then you’ll get credit for it, because you learned it by that point. Yeah,
Amy Lomellini 28:10
Yes. The point is that that learning, the point is not necessarily the final
Lillian Nave 28:15
Yeah,
Amy Lomellini 28:16
it’s the learning process throughout and supporting students in that and building ways into the courses to support it. Like you said, you know, having that workshop kind of a class, if it’s an online class, giving feedback, maybe peer reviews, maybe, you know, instructor feedback, and building you’re building their confidence along the way as well, and they feel supported. They feel you with them. And that support can be essential. Yeah, okay, right? So we’re, I think we’re also already getting into more questions that I had. But because I wanted to ask you about the kind of tools the online educators, what kinds of tools should they know about and use to make their courses more accessible? We’ve talked a lot about kind of theories and ideas, you know, and how to think about it, but what sort of ways are you? Yeah, advocating with technology. There’s just so many possibilities before coming to anthology. Like I said, I was a power user of ally as both a student, an instructional designer, an instructor. So Ally, to me, is like having an accessibility advocate in your pocket. It’s available when you need it. You know you don’t have students don’t have to ask for it. Faculty don’t have to ask for it.
So for a student, you can download alternative formats to content and use it in ways and places that work for you. So going back to that idea of the flexibility that was so essential for me as a student, so if you want to listen to content while you’re commuting to class, or, in my case, while I’m getting an infusion at home, you know, she’s got my arm and she’s putting in an IV, I can’t necessarily have my textbook open and holding it right. So if I have my headphones in and I’m kind of zoning out and listening to whatever it is,
or you can download a PDF. You can.
Highlight it for your comprehension. You just there’s so many options, and you don’t have to ask for anything. So I could use different things as a student and not have to tell my faculty, hey, I need this format. And that allowed me to experiment, which I think was really cool, and especially as I was learning my own disabilities that were happening at the moment, I was able to experiment without going through any sort of, you know, jumping through hoops or going through any process, because if you ask for one thing, you get one thing right, but with a tool like ally that gives you alternative formats, it was just there for anybody, disability or not, to try to experiment with. And I think the cool part on the faculty side is that you can learn more about how to improve content, but on your own time. So the same idea of this flexibility, I think we often think about it in terms of students, but I’m a fact, you know, I teach as well, right? So also learning about it, learning about accessibility on your own time as a faculty member is very important, yeah, and I’m kind of a data nerd, yeah, self described here, right? So the data that comes out of
a tool, like ally, like you can understand what format students are downloading. When I was an instructional designer, I used that, and I would talk to faculty and be like, See, told you they’re in there in your course. Look at what we’re downloading. Look at what they’re using. Now let’s think about that. How can we work that into the design? So how does that make sense with this content? What are they looking for? Right? It gave us all this insight. We could look at the critical barriers in the course, and that allowed us to understand, like, where should we start? So sometimes it’s just overwhelming. I you know, I have all kinds of PDFs or images or whatever the case may be, but here’s the one that you have the most issues with, right? Let’s start there. Let’s figure out what this looks like. And instead of necessarily remediating the document, I like to look at the picture of where it is. So Ally will flag the document as having issues, or maybe students aren’t downloading there. But then you can go into the course and see why. So asking that, like, why behind that was really important for me. And then instructional designers, you know, they can design training and resources and support faculty in the in making content more accessible, to make
this not completely about ally. I think another, I was a power user, I swear. But yeah, you know, I think another valuable tool that is the hot topic right now. I bet you know what I’m going to say, artificial intelligence,
Lillian Nave 32:24
AI, it was coming.
Amy Lomellini 32:25
You have to talk about it, you know, unfortunately or unfortunately, but there’s so many advances in AI that have potential if designed with people with disabilities in mind. So advances in AI, I mean, right now, can improve efficiencies in course design. They can sometimes build in accessibility. They can, I think an important piece of this is that it can leave time by improving efficiencies, it can leave time for instructional designers and faculty to think about the humans behind everything. So if we’re not doing kind of busy work, setting up a course or setting up a module, or kind of trying to figure out the technology. There’s more time to tailor it and add that human element, which has sometimes gotten lost in an online course. You know, you can use design assistance. You can create assessments that are aligned to your objectives, which is exactly what we were talking about before. And the AI can help guide you, not do it for you, because I think that’s important, but it can guide you making appropriate assignments and different levels all sorts of different things. It can create rubrics, making your intentions more prominent, right, and explaining yourself. For me, I still have mobility issues, so if I generate a rubric, I can edit that easier than I can create it. So it does the typing essentially for me, and then I just have to tweak it. And yeah, I also I just struggle personally with, you know, if there’s a blank page in front of me, I needed to have writing on it. I don’t care what it says, but I need writing on it, yes, so AI can help be that sort of prompt generator that then I can edit, and it’s easier for my disabilities and just easier for the way that I I tend to work. Having that starting point is really helpful.
The other thing I would say, kind of tangentially here, I think a tool that instructors or everyone can use is actually social media, connecting with community, so connecting with other people who are doing the same work, learning from each other. Honestly, that’s how I found out about this podcast, right? So social media, I had been following this podcast for a while and listening to it, and I found that on social media because other people were talking about it. I don’t know if I wasn’t on social media, if I would have found that. But also, I think the disability community is finding a voice on on social media as well, and it can be very interesting to hear perspectives that you wouldn’t otherwise hear, right, right? Yeah, that sort of it makes everything.
Lillian Nave 34:59
Much more authentic as well. Yes, and that was one of the the words that always jumps out at me in the universal design for learning guidelines, is authentic tasks, but that authenticity and you know, if it makes it meaningful, that’s how we’re going to engage with our students, how we engage with with the material, and how our students are also going to see that what they’re doing is meaningful. And, yeah, that connection, you know, we oftentimes think that an online course can be a correspondence course, kind of, you know, get back to me on Sunday night. And yeah, that’s then. There you have it that’s you’ve learned, but it’s not and so much if is in that, you know, community and the community of inquiry, and, yeah, learning from each other. This is, I must say, I completely 100% agree, because the best part of my job is the ability to talk to other people, like, if I could have a whole job that was just podcasting right and having these conversations, I would it’s the best part, because, you know, learning each other’s stories and and how you know your experience has impacted your Education, people don’t know that unless they’ve maybe heard our conversation, right?
Amy Lomellini 36:24
Absolutely. And it’s funny, I went to school in person for my beginning years of college. I don’t talk to pretty much anybody that was in that time of my life. And then I went to online school for my master’s, well, finishing my Bachelor’s for my master’s and my doctorate. And I have conversations with my cohort, with my faculty. I am so connected to the online, you know, educational experience that I had that I think people don’t often see that. And for me, a lot of it is I can’t go in person necessarily. You know, with covid and everything, I am still, you know, being very safe. I’ll wear a mask if I’m out. I don’t always go to events. I do pick select conferences to go to, but I prefer online interaction. Yeah, because it’s just easier for me. I don’t have to worry about how to get there. I don’t have to worry about, you know, anything, really. And I can just be more comfortable, and I can be more me. So online learning, my courses and my faculty and the program in general, they were able to create such a community, and it was online across the country. Yeah, the only time I ever went to campus was for graduation, and that was by choice, right? Because I’d never been to a graduation before. So, yeah, why not? Right? So I went to my doctoral graduation, but you know, the bonds that I’ve made with those people online is amazing, and something that I think some people think is impossible,
Lillian Nave 37:48
yeah, right, or that they have a judgment against it, that it’s not that it’s less than Right, right? That’s not authentic, and it’s darn sure it’s, it’s authentic, like it’s I have incredible relationships and conversations with people I’ve never met in person. And you know, every once in a while I’ll get to see at some actual in person conference, but most of a lot of the people that I am in contact with are, you know, across the country and across the world. And, yeah, it’s amazing. Thankfully, tech can allow that, that I can talk to people in Australia or Japan or, yeah, wherever. Amazing.
So okay, you talked about this early on, and I’m going to go back to your connections with disability culture. And you said that that had especially working with deaf students in the beginning, and that is often the community that I that other folks outside of the disability community can see, oh yeah, there’s definitely a Deaf culture like you can definitely see that. So how has that impacted, um, online education? Maybe not just for yourself, but like in general,
Amy Lomellini 39:09
yeah, it’s a great question, and it really made me think, you know, we usually think about it the other way. We think about how online education has impacted disabled students, right? We think about the opportunities it’s given and everything. But to your point, disability culture has definitely impacted our culture and online education. There’s some obvious ways, things like captions on videos were, of course, originally intended for deaf and hard of hearing students, but they benefit English language learners. They benefit, you know, people in loud environments, quiet environments, like a library. So when we start to think through, you know, how we can design things for, say, deaf individuals, it ends up benefiting everybody, which is kind of a main premise of UDL. But I think we kind of touched on this before disabled students have been fighting for online learning options, excuse me, options and the pandemic made up.
Possible, yeah, but we’ve been fighting for it forever.
As you said, the pandemic was terrible and, yeah, but the dividends, as you call that, I like that, is that, you know, online learning is seen as more possible now it’s doable, and it’s something that we can offer. And I do think the voices of disabled students has helped impact online education in that way, but it’s also made us realize that online learning has to be intentionally designed for accessibility. It can be just as problematic as inaccessible physical classrooms if it’s not and so I think that’s a key piece to keep in mind and to keep listening and to keep hearing from communities and from people. That’s one of my main missions in my current role. So we do lots of focus groups. We’re always, you know, elevating community voices, but one of my personal goals was to leverage the momentum from all those focus groups and create one dedicated to disabled users and allies of disabled users, so people who support disabled students or disabled faculty members. So I really wanted to create a community where we were specifically hearing from disabled voices. So we do focus groups, and we do one on ones, and I think it’s really important that their voices are represented in what we’re doing, and that it specifically includes us, and it’s also a really great learning experience for the teams, just to hear that just like you were saying too, like, oh, I hadn’t thought about that, right? So bringing that, that light bulb moment, if you will, to the teams, I think, is how disability culture can and has impacted online education,
Lillian Nave 41:40
yeah, and it’s, it’s so personal too. I mean, I can read data. I love data myself as well. However, it’s when I actually have a personal conversation, or I or I’m part of a group, and I hear the actual stories of actual people, and, you know, in actual circumstances, that’s when it makes a movement. You know, to me, I can read, and we can certainly, and this is important, and we can provide the data that says, here’s what’s helpful, here’s where it is. You know, this is what’s doing, but it’s it helps. It’s not until you’ve, you know, talked to somebody who their life has changed because of this access, you know,
Amy Lomellini 42:26
yeah, and that’s me, you’re talking to her right now, yeah. But what you just said, you know, hearing stories makes a movement, and I think that’s that’s essential, and I think it’s something we can take into our courses as well. So when we have stories, when we have impactful ways of storytelling that makes all the difference in the content as well. So building in that human voice, I think, you know, I work in technology, I get caught up in the shiny tech as just as much as anybody else, yeah, but I think the important part of technology is bringing it back to the humans and bringing it back to those stories and how you can teach your content by telling a story and being intentional and reflective on who’s in that story. What is the message that you’re sending? Have you thought about diversity? Have you thought about what that looks like? So I recently taught a module of an instructional design course, where they have to create an instructional design project. And one of the ideas that they they create is they create a report they have to talk about who their audience is for the class that they’re designing, you know, so on and so forth. After they’ve done that, we have a discussion. And one of the first questions is, did you think about diversity and doing a presentation on this shortly. But spoiler alert, the answer is, most of them did not
Lillian Nave 43:45
right
Amy Lomellini 43:46
until they were intentionally instructed to. Now let’s think about it. Let’s unpack this. What does this mean? And then we go into the module of, you know, going through accessibility and UDL and disability and how to talk about it. But it’s a wow moment for them, like, Oh, I didn’t think about that, right? And then when we can infuse those stories, and we can show how their design choices are going to impact students, I think that becomes an important lesson that they’ve learned, and then they incorporate it through their next projects.
Lillian Nave 44:16
Yeah, you know, and there’s so much to me in in the connections between UDL and another thing, what I teach is intercultural competence. And the intercultural competence piece is about understanding that somebody else’s culture is different than yours, not better, not worse. There’s not a judgment, there’s not a higher or lower, superior or not. It’s just different. But you actually have to recognize that you are swimming in your own fishbowl like that. You’re in the you’re in your own water. You have to recognize that that is your water, and somebody else is swimming in their other fishbowl water that’s different than yours. And you would think that’s super simple, but it isn’t, because there are still so many of us, and I was until much later than I wish, thinking, well, this is how it’s done, right? It’s that whole idea of this is how you teach biology, this is how you teach art history or whatever like, this is how the university works. This is how learning works, right? But it’s only because that’s your fishbowl. Then you have to see that somebody else has a completely different fishbowl. And then the third part says, number one is you recognize your own culture or your own fishbowl. You number two, you recognize somebody else is different. Number three is your mindful that reflection piece you brought up in the very beginning and say, oh, there’s a difference here and and the last part is, how do we bridge that difference? How do we understand and then act appropriately to include both fish bowls in the big aquarium? I don’t know that I lost my metaphor there, but, but, but something so it’s so it’s so very similar to me, is understanding, getting outside of our own selves, and if we don’t have the stories, we’re not going to get outside of our own selves.
Amy Lomellini 46:07
Yeah, I think getting outside of ourselves is essential. And even though I have my own disabilities, I’m medically complex, I don’t represent the entire disability community, or do I try to? Yeah? So yeah, right. So hearing from other people and listening to other people in their experiences. But I think something that instructors, or, you know, our field in general, may not understand is that there is a disability community, yeah, and I think that’s a shock to many people. Many people don’t we are a community with shared experiences, but we also have very different experiences as well, and that’s okay, but we come together in sharing that and in learning from each other. And I think it’s, you know, it’s pretty clear that there’s cultures for different countries or ethnicities, races, however you want to say, but I don’t always think it’s clear that disability is a culture, and the community being open about what they’re going through gave me so many me too. I understand that like I feel that way too moments, and it allowed me to accept my own identity and to grow in my disability identity. And that’s been a journey, and it will probably forever be a journey, but understanding that it exists and I and then questioning
how to represent that in what you’re doing, in your courses, in your technology, right? And really being able to push that forward and question. So the reflective piece, I think, is what the main theme here that we’re talking about, is this reflection idea and thinking outside of your your fishbowl, I like that.
Lillian Nave 47:43
So your point about reflection exactly that we have to be acknowledging those differences and and thinking about how we bridge it. When you said that, did you ask or did you think about the diversity like the different kinds of students, and we, we think of only what we know, like, yeah, if it’s a traditional student, we’re not thinking of there was, you know, a working mom, right? Somebody who had childcare a or is working nights and needs, you know, they can’t just access whatever it is at certain times, or show up at a particular time, those are all things that weren’t in my fishbowl. For, you know, the first 30 years of my life, I went to places that were super traditional and didn’t we didn’t think it was also the 90s. So cut me some slack. But,
but it was, yeah, it’s really hard to think outside of that. And so the more we can imagine and push and think about that, the better we’re going to be at designers.
Amy Lomellini 48:52
I think, yeah, I think that’s essential. I think that we by learning from each other, I think we can really do better, right? Know better, do better, yes. And again, back to the disability adage of you know nothing about us without us, yeah? And I’m just gonna shorten it again to nothing without us, yeah? So thinking of disability as a culture, I think can help people start to be intentionally reflective on how we’re including that. Yeah, I often do, when I do like workshops or speaking engagements, I’ll have people Google disability images and just see what comes up. You’ll always get the old man in a wheelchair, sometimes being happily pushed by somebody else. Yeah, sometimes it’s the wheelchair longingly looking over a cliff, right? It’s wild, the representation that’s out there, or you’ll get the parking spot with the wheelchair icon on it, right? Yeah, and that’s what culture is telling us. Disability culture is right, but that’s not it. Yeah, by any stretch of the imagination, disability looks like you and me and it looks like everyone.
Are all over the world, yeah, and that’s an important piece. So even thinking about that through your courses and how you’re representing disability, are you representing disability, right? So you might have 57 images of, I don’t know, biology, right? So whatever it is, people looking under microscopes and different kinds of imagery, Do you have anybody that is disabled, whether they look at or not. You know, different kinds of subtle cues. It could be a hearing aid, a cochlear implant. It could be an amputee, it could, you know, there’s just so many representations, and unfortunately, our culture tells us that it’s this wheelchair longingly, yeah, over a cliff, right? I don’t know why that’s a thing, right? And they’re sad about it, and they’re sad about it, yes, right? Or they stand next to the wheelchair going, Yeah, arms raised, yeah, exactly. So I think thinking through those representations in courses is helpful as well, yeah, and making sure that people feel like they’re represented.
Lillian Nave 51:00
Yeah, right. And, and there’s a lot of, how should I say this? There used to be a lot of the words Dei. There are some still. But when we do talk about inclusion, it’s not just the diversity of races or ethnicities, right? It’s also, it’s all so if the diversity doesn’t include disability, you’re not doing diversity at your school.
Amy Lomellini 51:35
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. There’s long been the question of, is accessibility a part of dei it should be, yeah, unless it’s getting cut in funding, and then it shouldn’t be and it should be a thing. But yes, so I mean, it definitely should be in and I think it gets forgotten, yes, often. So again, going back to this, just being intentional, being reflective on that, and keeping it in mind, what would somebody with a chronic illness? How would they experience my class? How would somebody, you know, with a learning disability, how would somebody who’s neurodivergent experience my class? And you have them in your class?
Lillian Nave 52:11
Yeah, so they’re they’re there.
Amy Lomellini 52:13
So planning for them proactively is all you know what UDL is about, plan for that diversity. Understand that they’re there and know that they’re there. Plan accordingly.
Lillian Nave 52:23
Yeah, wow, so, and rather, you’ve described my family, you’ve described, you know, all of the challenges that we are, that I am a part of. Yeah, they’re there. There’s no like, Oh, I wonder if no, they are, they are. So plan for it. So, yeah, okay, my last question, it’s going on the big one, and I feel like we’ve already been answering it. But what is your vision for the future of inclusive education?
Amy Lomellini 52:55
Yeah, so truly, I’m gonna say that again, truly including disabled students in education will allow us to share valuable insights, experiences and perspectives, and the world needs to hear our story, and honestly, our story needs to be an integral part of the world. So my vision for the future of inclusive education is a world where disabled students can not just get by or survive, but thrive in education. So I want to see a world where technology uplifts all students and doesn’t create more barriers, and a world where we are planned, you know, where everyone is planning for disability. Disability can happen to anyone at any time. Yes, right. Planning for that, thinking it through and just being reflective is going to make education more inclusive for everyone.
Lillian Nave 53:48
Yeah, yeah. I want to echo that point, because it’s not just for the elderly either. It’s very you know, I there, I have a family member who needs also infusions. We have to plan things around that, and it can’t be done at home. It needs, you know that meant missing classes and you know a rigid structure was not helpful for that. You know it’s not, and you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know it’s not like there’s a big signal and you’re not hanging something in your car that says it is you are, and you you know it’s going to happen to almost everyone, if not everyone. And you know, I hope I live that long, that that I will see the multiple ways, because I already was for a short time, broke my leg terribly, couldn’t walk, couldn’t drive, and wow, that brought everything into focus. You know what? How fragile that was. And you know also, we are recording this right after Hurricane Helene came through Appalachia, and we are all in some Dire Straits here. So apologize if my audio isn’t as great because I can’t use my setup because we don’t have power.
But yeah, like, there are all different ways that it’s going to show up. Yeah. Like, it’s not that there’s there’s disability and there’s accessibility issues that really depending on sometimes the day and the situation they’re going to show up. So if we can design for that flexibility, then we are setting ourselves up, I think, as on the instructor side, for much more success, rather than again the Hey. Okay. Well, what happened there? I Well, now I need a doctor’s note, or I need, you know, let’s, let’s fix this on the back end. We’ve got to fix it on the front end.
Amy Lomellini 55:48
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more with all of that.
Lillian Nave 55:53
Thank you. I so appreciate it. It has been just as we said before I started taping. It’s, it’s rough here in at App State after Hurricane Helene and I this the first thing I’ve been able to do. I’m so happy you offered. Let’s reschedule. I said, no, please. I just want to talk to you. You made me feel like this is, this is the reason why we do the things we do. So I really wanted to hear from you. And I just thank you so much for meeting with me.
Amy Lomellini 56:23
Thank you so much for having me on thank you for doing this podcast and getting voices out there and talking about this. I think it’s such an important topic that, you know, I’m again, very honored that you had me on here. So thank you so much, and I wish you and all of the people affected by Helene. Yeah, all the best.
Lillian Nave 56:39
Thank you. Thank you so much. We we’re going forward and really appreciate you know the tips here, I think you know, as more of these things happen too, we’re learning how flexible we need to be and how we need to plan for things you can’t plan for in essence. So thank you. Amy, I really appreciate it.
Amy Lomellini 57:01
Thank you so much. Have a great day.
Lillian Nave 57:07
You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released, and also see transcripts and additional materials at the thinkutl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor, Texthelp. Texthelp is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Texthelp and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding with over 50 million users worldwide, the Texthelp suite of products includes read and write equatio and orbitnote, they work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Text help has changed the lives of millions worldwide and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030 visit text, dot, help forward, slash, learn more. That’s L, E, A, R, N, M, O, R, E, to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Odyssey quartet, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez and I am your host. Lillian Nave, thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai